Wizard Gynoid's Sacred Geometry: Through December 1

Location: Badly Needed Study Break

I needed to get away from reviewing academic articles for Writing Lab Newsletter and so off I went, in avatarian form, to see Wizard Gynoid's artwork. This gave me the excuse to play with the Advanced Sky settings, something I used to do on my monthly road trips until I got so mad at Linden Lab that I parked my fake cars for a while.

I don't get out enough now to see the arts in SL, one of the best reasons to retain an avatar in that grid. I've a layman's interest in geometry, one of the few forms of math at which I could ever earn A grades.

Wizzy's "Four-Point Retroperspective" runs until Dec. 1 at The Turing Gallery and to quote the artist:

"The creations shown here are a retrospective of some of the things I've been working on over the last three and a half years. Precise geometry is the unifying theme. My work has largely been about shifting these objects to an artistic context, so that their inherent beauty can be appreciated.



The lobby has several works by my collaborator Polagirus Paragorn. These works are significant from a "Sacred Geometry" perspective, and are suggestive of the significance of the isometric grid. The "Flower of Life" motif is recurrent.

The next room has objects representative of the Kepler/Poinsot group of geometric solids. The Platonic Solids are represented, as well as various higher-dimensional (than three)"

Get by to see the work. I'm an old-school gamer, so I had to buy a dodecahedron.

Another Must-See at Burn2

Location: sorting & uploading textures to OpenSim
image credit: Miso Susanowa's blog

Today's a busy one for my OpenSim gridnaut, who is working on bulk uploads of textures I made for the House of Usher build.

Since I'll miss the last day at Burn2, I want to thank Deanya Zenfold for this tip. You got a link to Miso's map in my last post, but I'll repeat it here. Get over the the Playa before it all ends! Deanya's advice follows.

Miso Susanowa's House of Cards: The History of the Internet as a house of cards with your sound on! She has been collecting sounds since she was 6 years old, and she has a treasure trove of them at each installation, mind-bogglingly mixed down into compact random-sounding loops. Read about the installation here:

http://gomiso.blogspot.com/2010/10/house-of-cards-burn2.html

She also has a great map of burn2: http://gomiso.blogspot.com/2010/10/playa-map-burn2-artists.html

Lost Their Wings: Bryn Oh at Burn 2

Location: Remembering what it really was all about

A special thanks to Bryn Oh for her installation at Burn 2 this year. Her work never fails to revive a sense of excitement about Second Life's potential.

After Linden Lab backed out of sponsoring the arts event, not even providing free sims for a few months, I felt let down and, once again, felt it time to look elsewhere for inspiration. See Phaylen Fairchild's story about Linden Lab's preference for fake bunnies to real art.

I like to support SL's artists and Bryn Oh is one of the finest makers of 3D art I've encountered. Her aesthetic is consistent and convincing. So off I went to Burn 2. Not a Linden or fake bunny in sight. Good. The artists pulled it off on their own.

I found navigation at the event difficult until I discovered a Playa map by
Miso Susanowa. Many thanks!

It was easy to find the build, but it look me longer to get inside. Once I figured out how to enter the unremarkable exterior of her build, as always, I found myself in an immersive wonderland. Bit by bit, I came upon the exquisite sculpture of Lady Carmagnolle, who "painted faces on rocks/ with things/ she pretended they were birds/ who had somehow/ lost their wings"


Oh's works within the larger work include, early in the build, a skeletal "Seraphim" and a little Steampunk music box with a video link to "Format." As always in her work, there's a sense of childhood loneliness, a subtle and never-quite-glimpsed menace, and (naturally) exquisite detail. The music box and many other parts of the otherwise darkened interior of the Burn 2 build invite close camming. There's a "prim poem" with a reference to "Angler Girl," one of the highlights of her build from last year's Burning Life, "Vessel's Dream."


My wife shoulder-surfed Iggy's journey through the build, and she liked how much of Oh's art, in particular the centerpiece sculpture this year, has been inspired by sewing. It's easy to spot a seamstress' dummy in many figures she crafts. I saw that influence last year at "Vessel's Dream" as well.

It's also interesting to see Oh work with Peter Greenaway, whose films so often are carnal in a literal sense: there's a lot of meat in his work, while Oh's work is so often fragile, skeletal. I like this pairing of these two different sensibilities. Have a look at "Dreams," a video linked from the Burn 2 site and connected to a Greenaway project, "Big Bang."

So find your way through this door while you can. Burn 2 ends soon and we all wonder what, if anything, will follow it in 2011.

I don't mind the sadness of Oh's work, especially this fall as so much seems uncertain about this particular virtual world. Whatever happens to SL and its maker, Oh's work will remain important (and ephemeral) moments to what is not otherwise possible.

Burn 2 at the Stilt Bitches

Location: Dizzy as all get out; Bozo is in worse shape

I wandered aimlessly through Burn 2 today, since my time there this year will be limited. I ran into Firery Broome, an educator in the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable. With Burn 2 ranger SkyCat Ranger we did some juggliing.

Firery had designed costumes for the Stilt Bitches Flying Circus, and when I went there I had more fun than most mortals are permitted.


Attractions include a big swing outside, a fortune teller's tent, a flying carpet (I've yet to ride that), and in the big tent a trampoline with the funniest sound effects of "boing boing" I've heard in a while. While lovely female avatars Betty and Amalthea bounced up and down I cavorted on stilts and juggled burning clubs.

Then I got to punch the snot out of Bozo the Clown. Just what I needed today.

Go by and be a little kid for a while. Bozo can take it.